


Between a Radstorm and a Deathclaw

by NervousAsexual



Series: Sometimes a Family [3]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship, Fluff, Queerplatonic Relationships, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-22 16:52:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13768413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: While out in the field Nick, Ellie, and Euthalia run afoul of nature and have to make impromptu camp. The world's most dangerous slumber party ensues, and Nick and Euthalia try to clarify their relationship.





	1. Chapter 1

Originally the trip was just a quick jaunt up to Goodneighbor. They--Nick and Euthalia and Ellie--were going to scoot over, let Ellie visit her old friends, find time for Nick to pick up the latest gossip, cheer up Euthalia when she inevitably ran into Magnolia, and then they would return to Diamond City.

Everything went fine until it came time to leave. The streets were crawling with super mutants and Nick insisted that as long as Ellie was with them he was going to avoid combat as much as possible. Euthalia took a good look at Ellie, with her ratty pink skirt and her big brown eyes and the way she held the baseball bat Euthalia had given her too far up the handle and felt a sappiness came over her and agreed that Ellie must be protected at all costs.

She let Nick take the lead and fell in line behind Ellie. They sneaked around some back alleys, working their way north, and just as they were about to start heading back in the proper direction an alert came in of a kidnapping up at Tenpines Bluff by way of the Parsons State Asylum.

"Cait lives at Tenpines Bluff," Euthalia complained to Nick as they turned again northward. "Who on earth could have gotten kidnapped under her watch?"

As it turned out, the answer was Cait. They were nearing Lynn Woods when an apologetic voice got back on the radio and informed them that it was a false alarm, the victim had been returned and the leader of the raider party responsible had had his kneecaps blown off with a shotgun, after which he had apparently found religion and ran off (figuratively, of course) with a sect of the Children of Atom.

"I love a happy ending," Ellie said when they told her.

"Waste of time." Nick didn't sound particularly enthused about the wasted trip, and Euthalia too had to admit she still had work in Diamond City she could have been dealing with. And now she could see, off in the distance, the distinctive green flash of an approaching radstorm.

A rapidly approaching radstorm.

Glorious day.

"So what does that mean?" Ellie asked. "We go indoors and wait it out?"

"That's liable to be a problem." Euthalia pulled up the map on her Pip-Boy. "As far as I know there isn't proper insulated shelter for a while yet, except for maybe the Asylum..."

"Which we are not sheltering in." Nick put a hand over the map and pushed it down. "That place gives me the willies at the best of times, and now we're looking at either raiders or the Children of Atom, and neither one of those are things I'm willing to subject Ellie too."

"Thanks, Dad," Ellie said, rolling her eyes but Euthalia could tell by the way she picked at the tape on the bat that the prospect of hiding out in an enclosed space with angry armed guys excited her about as much as being irradiated.

 "Fair enough." Next closest locations were Breakheart Banks and the old creamery, neither of which had safe, enclosed, rad-proof spaces, and at least one of which had a super mutant infestation. "Where do you suggest?"

Nick gave her a look that most people would have interpreted as meaningless, just the stock expression all synths had before the Gen 3s came along, but Euthalia knew well enough what it was. It was worry.

 "What about here?" Ellie inserted himself between the two of them and pointed up the hill toward the tower at the center of Lynn Woods. "That tower's got to be concrete, a couple feet thick."

"Also not completely enclosed and bordered on two sides by raiders and deathclaws," Nick said.

"But the deathclaws can't climb the stairs," Euthalia reminded him. "And I doubt the raiders want to be out in the storm any more than we do."

Even as they spoke the storm was getting closer. Her Geiger counter gave the first crackle of activity. Nick looked from one of them to the other and up at the sky.

"Alright," he said. "But when you're soaking up rads and we're all being mauled by deathclaws, don't go looking at me."


	2. Chapter 2

Since it wasn't really Nick's idea Euthalia led the way into Lynn Woods. There didn't seem to be any deathclaws around, or raiders, for that matter. The world had gone very still, like it too was waiting to see if they were going to die of radiation poisoning. For all their sakes Euthalia decided to look at this as a good thing. At least the likelihood of being ambushed by a missile launcher to the face was lower.

She did a quick sweep of the ramshackle building tossed together near the fire pit and found nobody, and Nick and Ellie went up and down the tower to confirm that too was empty. They regrouped at the base of the tower.

"I forgot there were all these windows here," she said, running a hand along the wrought iron bars. This place was definitely less secure than she remembered.

A burst of lightning tore across the sky and the accompanying flash of her Geiger counter told her it was time to take cover. Ellie sidled up close and gave her a nervous smile, and Euthalia patted her shoulder and smiled back in what she hoped was a comforting manner.

"Alright, no more dilly-dallying." Nick steered them both into a corner under the stairs and sat them down between the wall and a pile of crates. "If you've got Rad-X, now's the time to take it. Otherwise..." He hesitated a moment. "Ah, hell." He undid the belt on his coat and peeled it off and held it out to them.

"Nick," Ellie said, her voice a mix of surprise and amusement and something else, something that made her a little nervous.

"You two need it more than I do," he said, and if he weren't a synth Euthalia knew he'd be blushing. "A few rads ain't gonna do me no harm, and you need all the layers you can get."

 He looked almost comical, standing there without his costume, his incredibly ineffectual battle armor, and it occurred to her she'd never actually seen him without that coat. The coat and the hat were as much a part of him as the mechanical hand and the occasionally dark literary references. She glanced over at Ellie, and she looked lost, too, like the world was going to end.

"Nick," she said, "you're scaring us. Put your coat back on."

"Don't gimme that, you've seen synths wearing less." He leaned forward to physically put the coat over them, and Euthalia did something she would never be able to explain in a million years.

She grabbed hold of the coat, and she gave it a yank. And Nick, not expecting any resistance, pitched forward on top of them.

"Perfect," Euthalia said, giving Ellie a look. Was she okay? Did she realize it wasn't as bad as all that? "Stay right there and shield us with your rad-proof synth body."

At the same time Nick asked, "What the hell did you do that for?"

And Ellie: "How do you two even function?"

Nick glared up at her but there wasn't time to argue. He pulled the coat out from under him and started to put it over them like a blanket, but she got an arm around his waist and pulled him down between the two of them again. There was another crack of lightning, and he quickly spread the coat over the three of them.

"The hell were you thinking?" he demanded, pulling it up over Ellie and Euthalia's heads. "You're going to get the both of you killed."

"We're fine." It was dark under the coat, darker than she'd expected the coat, with its multitude of patches and frayed seams, to be. "And you're fine too. You're the one who was trying to be a hero and scaring Ellie."

"Don't blame me for this," Ellie said.

For a moment she couldn't say anything. Was she the one overreacting? Was she projecting all her insecurities? Maybe she was the one bothered by Nick without his coat. And, well, she was, but...

"Fine," she said. "You were scaring me. I don't need you to be a hero."

"I've told you once," he said. "I've told you a thousand times. The rads don't bother me. It's not a problem."

"Well, it is to me. I feel a lot better with you in here with us."

"It is kind of nice," Ellie admitted. Euthalia could hear her moving around and soon Ellie's hand bumped against her. She had an arm across Nick's body. Euthalia did the same, curled up with her head on his chest and her arm across his middle and her hand on Ellie's shoulder.

 Nick harrumphed. "Fine. But no more shenanigans. We're going to sit tight until the storm is past and then we're going straight back to Diamond City and get the two of you de-radded, no matter who else gets kidnapped."

"That's fair," Ellie said.

"Yup," agreed Euthalia. "Fair enough."


	3. Chapter 3

Nick wasn't the most comfortable pillow. Synthetic skin or not he was still gears and sprockets underneath and not exactly soft. But he felt safe, which was kind of funny when Euthalia thought about it. She hadn't felt safe in probably two hundred years. Hadn't felt safe in the vault, locked away from the radiation. Hadn't felt safe in Diamond City, with walls and armed guards to keep the synths and the mutants and any kind of ghoul let alone feral out. But here, a stone's throw from a deathclaw nest, hop, skip and jump from a raider base, radioactive lightning cracking all around, she actually felt safe.

"So," she whispered conspiratorially. "Which boy do you like?"

"What now?" Nick asked, but Ellie laughed.

"None boys," she said. "Boys are objectively the worst. Present company excepted, of course."

"Nick's not a boy, he's a synth detective. Right, Nick?"

Nick said nothing.

"Okay, so you're right about boys. So which girl do you like?"

Now it was Ellie's turn to sit in embarrassed silence.

"Nobody," she said at last.

"Oh, come on, now. You don't really expect me to believe that. You can tell me. And Nick's not gonna tell anybody."

"I said nobody." There was a smile in Ellie's voice, though, and she giggled helplessly.

"If I can guess would you tell me?"

"Maybe."

"Hmm." She ran back through all the women she could think of in Diamond City. "Is it Myrna? Forbidden love affair, she worries you're a synth and you love from afar."

"Nope."

"The mayor's secretary? Can't remember her name."

"Not her."

"Miss Edna? Darcy Pembroke? Scandal of scandals, she loves another but you will always..."

"She's nice, but no."

"Scarlett? Becky Fallon?"

"No."

"Is it..." Oh geez, she hoped she was wrong about this. "It's not Ann Codman, is it?"

"God no!"

That was a relief, she supposed. Either way that would end in heartbreak and if anybody broke Ellie's heart she'd probably have to stab them. "Then who... Piper?"

"I mean, she's cute."

"But not the one you like. But who else...?"

"It's Polly," Nick said.

"Who?" That had better not be one of the kids from the schoolhouse, she thought. Please god.

"Runs Choice Chops. Blond hair, undercut."

"How do you know?" Ellie demanded.

"It's my job to know. She's nice enough. Not a girl, though. Apagender, I think she calls it."

"How do you  _know_ that?"

"I told you, it's my job to know things. It isn't like she keeps it a secret. Like I said, she's nice enough. You could do a lot worse."

Euthalia couldn't help but giggle as well. This was nice. "See? Nick thinks your crush is fine. It is Nick-approved, and that's not nothing. You should ask her out."

"I don't think so."

"It's your choice," Nick said. "But I think she'd enjoy your company anyway."

"He's such a mother hen," Euthalia whispered across his stomach.

"Right?" Ellie whispered back. "He does my laundry. My laundry! Says I don't clean up enough so he just does it for me."

"What?!" Even Nate wouldn't do laundry for her, hated the sorting and the pre-treating and all that. He'd do anything for love, he'd said, but he wouldn't do that. Which was part of the reason they ended up getting Codsworth. "Do you think he'd do my laundry?"

"Probably." Ellie was silent for a moment. "He does a lot of that stuff. Taking care of me."

"Yeah." He took care of her too. Not in the same way, of course--he'd taken gunshots for her more than once, although she didn't doubt he would do the same for Ellie or for anyone else who might need it--but he was so good to everyone he met and she was so lucky to have found him in the chaos of the Commonwealth. "He means an awful, awful lot to me."

"He's been a huge influence on me," Ellie agreed softly. "I really love him."

"Me too," Euthalia said, and said it out loud just to see how it felt. "I love Nick Valentine, too. I love him." It felt a little embarrassing, but exhilarating too, and right in a way a lot of things didn't any more.

"That's enough out of you two," Nick said, and they both jumped because he was listening after all. "It's late and you both need some sleep before we go gallivanting across the Commonwealth."

Ellie and Euthalia both fell silent, more than a little flustered, but Euthalia thought she recognized a little emotion in Nick's voice too. He was a little embarrassed as well. A little embarrassed, but a little bit happy too.


	4. Chapter 4

Euthalia woke up not quite sure where she was, but then that happened a lot these days. She held still for a moment while it all came back. The trip to Goodneighbor, the kidnapping, the journey north, Nick and Ellie, the radstorm.

Hmm. The radstorm.

She couldn't hear the rumble of thunder, and her Geiger counter was quiet and still. She could hear the gentle whirring of Nick's processor inside his chest. He had an arm around her shoulder. Ellie was snoring softly on his other side.

Cautiously she pulled the coat down from over her head. Blinking in the sunlight, she took in the tower and the quiet woods surrounding them. She glanced up at Nick, unsure what to expect, but he was looking back at her and the expression on his face was gentle and calm.

"Isn't it time to get moving?" she said. "You were in a big rush to get back to Diamond City, and there's deathclaws around."

"It's been quiet," he said, turning his gaze to the tower door. "I figured I'd let the two of you sleep in."

"That's awful nice of you." She didn't feel much like getting up. Her side was sore from sleeping on the concrete, and there was a crick in her neck from being propped up against him all night long, but it still felt safe and comforting in a different way. "'ppreciate it."

Ellie mumbled something and resettled against Nick's chest. She was still under the coat, and Nick's other arm was around her.

"I know you don't sleep." Euthalia shifted a little, but when Nick tried to lift his arm away from her she pulled it back down. "So what do you do when the rest of us are?"

"Run diagnostics. Do some preventative maintenance. Go over old cases. Depends, really."

"Hmm." She knew they should really wake Ellie up and get on the road but it was just so nice to be here together. "Listen, about what we said last night... you know we meant that, right? Me especially. I meant what I said."

"That I'm a mother hen? Yeah, I don't doubt that."

"No. That I love you."

He snorted.

"I'm serious. I do love you, Nick. An awful, awful lot."

He didn't say anything. She glanced up at him again and he was looking out into the sunshine, an unreadable expression on his face.

"I wouldn't have made it this far without you."

"Don't doubt that either. It's my job."

"That's not what I mean. I mean, without you I'd probably be dead in a ditch somewhere, or strung out in Goodneighbor, or... I don't know what. After Nate... died... I didn't think I was ever going to love anybody again. Not like that."

"Not a good idea. Not with me."

"Why not?" She knew he still loved Jenny Lands, in a way, but she still loved Nate in a very similar way.

"I don't... work that way, kid. I'm missing parts. Not just physically, either. I can't love people the way Nick did. That's just not the way I operate."

"And that's okay." She squeezed an arm around behind him and hugged him tight. "Trust me on this. You don't even know half of my story. Remember what you said to me about having a girlfriend? Or at least about what it was like for Nick to have a girlfriend?"

He didn't say anything.

"You told me it was good and it was amazing. And, yeah, it was like that when Nate and I were together. But we weren't a perfect match, not like you read about in the books. But I still wouldn't have missed it for anything."

His amber eyes closed, and if he were human instead of a synth she got the feeling he would have sighed.

"What was it you said about Polly last night? That she wasn't a girl, she was..."

"Apagender. It's... where you don't really know what your gender is but you don't really care."

"Right. So you know what that means. You know what aromantic is, Nick? You know what asexual means? How about queer-platonic relationship?"

He didn't say a word.

"I'm not saying that's what Nate and I had. It was more complicated than that. But if that's what you are, Nick, aroace... It doesn't change anything. I love you anyway."

Still he was silent.

"And if that's the way you love me back... I'll take it. I know you, Nicky. You love in the biggest best way you can."

"Yeah."

"And I'm honored." She couldn't bear to look anymore and she turned her gaze back to Ellie and the way the coat gently rose and fell with each breath she took. "Just to have you as a friend is an honor. And anything more... It's more than I ever could have hoped for."

"I can't tell you I love you," he said quietly, and she thought her heart would break. "Love is what Nick had for Jenny Lands and I can't give you that."

"That's okay."

"But I..." He was silent for a moment. "I... care about you. An awful lot."

"I understand." She didn't, not really. "So does this mean we're... are you and I... are we going to try to make this, like, a relationship? A QPR, a... whatever you want to call it? We're gonna do this thing?"

For a moment he didn't say anything. She looked up and maybe somebody else wouldn't have recognized the expression on his face but she knew it and it was a gift.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he said softly.


End file.
